


they're in love, where am i?

by gaykavinsky (lesbiankavinsky)



Series: mama's boy verse [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, alec expresses one parentheses one emotion to him, also background jace/simon, and then is like woah this must be love, cw for bucketloads of internalized homophobia, izzy and simon literally in the background so im not gonna but them in the character tags, magnus is a bartender, nothing super heavy tho, this is mostly a character study of alec tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 04:57:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16716972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbiankavinsky/pseuds/gaykavinsky
Summary: “It can be hard seeing your friends in love.”“Brother,” Alec corrects, though he supposes it doesn’t make a great deal of difference. “Baby brother.”“Ahh.”Maybe it’s the sudden flush of whiskey in his throat or maybe it’s the fact that the bartender is cute -- not at all his type, but undeniably cute -- or maybe it’s just his loneliness catching up to him, but Alec keeps talking. “The baby part is what really gets me, I mean, I’m older than him and I’ve been out longer than him and I’ve got, you know, a real job and a pretty nice apartment and I mean, I have my life together, right? So why is he the one who can find --” here he almost says love but revises at the last minute, “a boyfriend. I mean, don’t I deserve that?”





	they're in love, where am i?

Alec makes a point never to take advice from his little siblings. In fact, if one of them tells him what to do, he’ll generally do the opposite. He avoided the bar closest to his apartment for all four years of undergrad just because Izzy told him it was cool. So it really pains him in the very depths of his soul to be here trying to ask Jace for dating advice, and it’s not even working.

They’re all back home in New York for spring break and tonight he and Izzy and Jace agreed to go out for drinks, except of course Jace brought his boyfriend along because they’re attached at the hip -- or, more often, the mouth -- these days. That’s the point, really. Jace is still completely googly-eyed over Simon and they’ve been dating for six months, so he must be onto something. Alec’s relationships always seem to be the same. They’re fun at first and they last a few months at most and he’s always the one to end it because he always gets bored. In a rare moment of weakness he’d admitted this to Izzy and she’d replied, “Yeah, that’s because you always date boring dudes.” Which is, he thinks, pretty much what he deserves for confiding in one of his siblings. But now he’s doing it again because Jace and Simon just seem so _happy_ and Alec can admit, at least to himself, that he’s really starting to feel the loneliness of being in his mid-twenties and never having had a serious relationship.

Well, that’s not quite right -- a long-term relationship. All his relationships have been serious. He’s pretty sure Jace would tell him that’s part of his problem. Back in their teenage years they’d hate terrible fights, he and Jace, when they were both newly out. From the get-go Jace had been loud and proud in a way that used to make Alec cringe, talking about his crushes to anyone who would listen, showing up to school dances wearing glitter nail polish. He even sewed a rainbow flag that spanned the width of his shoulders to the back of his varsity jacket. It was never anything that would get him in trouble, nothing Alec could be justified in telling him not to do, but if anything that made the tension between them worse. Jace wasn’t completely oblivious; he could tell that Alec resented his behavior, but he generally chose to brush it off as jealousy rather than any serious disapproval. When Jace got to college he seemed, from what Alec could glean, to be dedicating more time and energy to parties and hookups than schoolwork. Their arguments always followed the same circular track: Alec told Jace off for the way he was behaving, Jace replied that Alec only minded because he was a tightass who hated to see other people happy, Alec would say better a tightass than careless, Jace would hear _slutty_ where Alec had said _careless_ and would hang up the phone. It’s only been in the past two years that they’ve started to mend things, started to emerge from that long dark tunnel. That they’ve started to be friends again. Now they stand side by side at the bar, waiting to collect drinks for the table.

“So,” Alec says, determined to bully some wisdom out of his brother before they head back to the table. “You and Simon, you’re doing well?”

Jace lays his head on his hand, a dreamy look on his face. “Yeah,” he says. He’s already a few shots in and Alec is tragically sober, which he’s sure is only going to add to the misery of this whole enterprise.

Alec shifts his weight a bit. “You never told me how you two got together?”

Jace shrugs, the gesture exaggerated by alcohol. “I dunno man, it just sort of happened, you know? Like the way things happen.”

Alec has no idea how things happen. “Yeah, but you have a story, right?”

There’s the shrug again. “I mean, we were always friends and then it just happened.” The expression on Jace’s face shifts and for a moment Alec is seized by panic, thinking he’s about to cry. Instead, he just says, “God, I love him so much. He’s so great, I love him.”

Oh god. Even worse than crying. Alec is trying to think of a way to steer the conversation away from Simon when Jace turns away from the bar and calls out, “Hey, babe!” He goes loping back to the table where he tumbles into the seat next to Simon, who looks wonderfully, terribly fond. Alec turns back to the bar.

The bartender who took their order pushes four glasses across the counter toward him and Alec thanks him quickly before trying to figure out how to carry them all at once. It seems unlikely that Jace will come back to help, so Alec figures he can take three at once and come back for his own drink. When he does, he ends up knocking back half his drink standing at the bar. Back at the table, Jace and Simon are making out and Izzy is flirting with a waiter and at this point Alec is beginning to wonder if this whole night was a bad idea. All three of them had wanted some time together, but that’s definitely not what this is turning out to be.

“Everything okay?”

Alec looks up to see the bartender watching him. He puts down his glass, a bit embarrassed. “Yeah, fine.”

“It can be hard seeing your friends in love.”

“Brother,” Alec corrects, though he supposes it doesn’t make a great deal of difference. “Baby brother.”

“Ahh.”

Maybe it’s the sudden flush of whiskey in his throat or maybe it’s the fact that the bartender is cute -- not at all his type, but undeniably cute -- or maybe it’s just his loneliness catching up to him, but Alec keeps talking. “The baby part is what really gets me, I mean, I’m older than him and I’ve been out longer than him and I’ve got, you know, a real job and a pretty nice apartment and I mean, I have my life together, right? So why is he the one who can find --” here he almost says love but revises at the last minute, “a boyfriend. I mean, don’t I deserve that?”

The bartender leans forward on both elbows and says, “I don’t think relationships are usually a question of deserving. It’s just circumstance and luck and maybe the only part you can control is your openness to it.”

“I’m open to relationships,” Alec says, realizing too late that he maybe sounds a bit pathetic or else whiney or else defensive. He takes another drink of whiskey. “Sorry,” he says, “this isn’t your problem, I don’t even know your name..”

The bartender laughs a light, charming laugh. “I don’t get the tips I get telling people I don’t want to hear about their problems. And it’s Magnus.”

“Alec. Fair enough.”

“You want another one of those?” Magnus nods to Alec’s nearly empty glass. “On the house.”

Alec may have a real job, but he’s not going to say no to anything that’s on the house, so he nods. “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”

Magnus takes the glass and then, tipping it to roll it around on the rim of its base with one finger, says, “Or I could make you something more interesting.”

“Hmm?”

“Whiskey’s fine and all, but I’m trying out some new recipes of my own for cocktails. Care to be my guinea pig?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

“How would you like something a bit fruity?”

Alec wouldn’t be caught dead ordering something fruity, but this is someone else’s treat, so he figures he shouldn’t say no. “Dealer’s choice.”

Magnus starts mixing and Alec glances back at the table, where Simon’s hand is moving very visibly up Jace’s thigh. He looks away. How is it possible for the sensation of being untouched to be so visceral? When Magnus pushes the drink toward him, he takes it and sips. It tastes of peaches and citrus and barely at all of alcohol, which is really nice, actually. Alec has always just sort of gritted his teeth and borne the taste of liquor, but he’s never really enjoyed it.

“That’s nice,” he says, looking into the glass. It’s a lovely shade of orangey-pink that makes him think of the sunsets he used to watch in college, leaning out of the window of his apartment. He’d thought, once, of putting in window boxes and trying to grow flowers there, but had decided against it.

“Better than your whiskey neat?”  
  
“Definitely,” he says. He wonders if he would have said that if Jace had still been standing next to him. Whiskey is what he always gets, what he’s always gotten. It’s what his dad drinks, so it’s what he drinks. Sometimes it can be nice not to have to make any choices. He takes another sip of the drink.

“I could name it after you,” Magnus says, picking up a glass and polishing it, which Alec thinks is probably more about having something to do with his hands than anything else because the glass already looks pretty clean. “Not Alec, though, no poetry in that -- no offence -- but maybe Alexander? That’s what it’s short for, isn’t it?”

Alec nods.

Magnus puts down the glass and flips the towel over his shoulder. “The _Alexander_ it is.”

“I’m honored.” He feels like he’s supposed to say something more, that somehow he’s ended up in the middle of a dance and the next step is his, and he’s just on the point of opening his mouth again when Jace comes crashing into his left side. Jace’s motor skills deteriorate pretty quickly under the influence.

“Alec come _on_ we’re having sibling bonding and stuff, why are you sulking over at the bar.”

“Last time I looked, the only person you were bonding with was Simon,” Alec says, trying to keep any real hurt or irritation out of his voice.

Jace pouts. “Izzy’s telling stories about the fight club she started.”

“Oh god. If she gets kicked out before she gets her degree --”

Jace takes Alec’s face in both his hands, squishing his cheeks so that he involuntarily makes a fish mouth. “For once in your life, don’t be a killjoy. Now come on!”

As Jace drags him bodily over to their table, Alec turns back to the bar and raises the glass he’s managed to hang onto and hopes Magnus understands it as a sign of thanks.

And really, now that Jace has unglued himself from Simon, it really is a good evening and Izzy’s stories are good as long as he doesn’t let his eldest sibling sense of protectiveness and judgement kick in and even if watching Jace with his arm around Simon makes something pinch tight in his chest he can still, with a certain discipline of mind, tell himself that he’s happy for his baby brother. Still, every once in a while he glances over at the bar to see Magnus, mixing drinks and cleaning glasses, chatting with customers. He’s a little sad every time he sees Magnus talking to someone, which is silly because Magnus is a bartender and that’s part of his job and it’s not like there’s anything special about Alec that made their conversation anything different from the dozens of others he must have every day at work. He’d even said that the way to make good tips is to listen to people’s problems. He’d just been doing his job. But once when he glances over at the bar, he catches Magnus watching him and he remembers how he’d said his name -- not _Alec_ but _Alexander_. How he’d let the word sit on his tongue.

Around midnight they head out -- Alec looks over to the bar one last time but doesn’t see Magnus and guesses he must be on break or else his shift must be over -- and split up. Jace goes with Simon to Brooklyn and Izzy heads back to the Lightwood house but Alec’s apartment is just a few blocks away so for a few minutes he stands under the awning to see if they light drizzle of rain of rain peters out or turns into something more serious. He doesn’t want to get drenched and he can afford the luxury of a short cab ride. But the drizzle softens to a gentle misting and Alec likes late night walks so he steps out from under the awning and is about to cross the street when he hears his name.

“Alexander.”

Even if he hadn’t recognized the voice, it’s not like there’s anyone who uses that name. Magnus is standing at the corner of the building. He must have come from the staff entrance in the back and Alec feels a swell of gratitude that he doesn’t want to examine just now for the perfect timing of it. He steps back from the curb.

“Magnus.”

“My shift just ended, I’m glad I caught you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“I wanted,” Magnus says, shuffling about in his pocket, “to give you my number.” He produces a cocktail napkin and hands it to Alec. “I was hoping you’d come back to the bar at some point but -- well, I’d given up hope so I guess this is a bit of divine intervention.”

Alec holds the napkin in both hands, looking at the string of numbers written on it. “I -- thank you.” The words feel clumsy and stupid and he looks up at Magnus, a little worried about what he’ll see on his face. But Magnus’ expression remains calm, neutral.

“You said you were open.”

Standing face to face without the bar between them, in the glow of streetlights, Alec can see not only the glitter liner under Magnus’ eyes but also the faint shine of his lipgloss, the carefully constructed swirls of his gravity-defying hair. _Not my type,_ Alec had thought earlier. And yet -- what is Alec’s type? It would be easy to make a composite of all the guys he’s dated, their styled but not over-styled hair, their suits and acceptably conservative ties, their bland smiles. They’d all been easy to bring home, they’d made it easy for his parents to swallow his sexuality. Which had probably actually made things harder for Jace, he realizes for the first time, and maybe that explains some of their adolescent animosity. Everyone Alec has ever dated has been comfortably masculine, the kind of guys who are quick to assure everyone -- lest they make some straight person uncomfortable, even for a moment -- that being gay doesn’t define them. After all why would they want to be defined by their sexuality when they could be defined by their class rank, or the make and model of their car or, in the case of one shockingly dull guy Alec had gone out with for a total of two and a half weeks, by their putting average. According to all existing data, that’s Alec’s type. Only not one of them had ever made him happy. He thinks about all the pretty boys he never let himself look twice at, and for once in his life he does what he wants to do. He steps forward and, tilting Magnus’ face up with both his hands, kisses him. His lip gloss tastes of strawberries. Right, Alec thinks. Sweet. He feels Magnus putting his arms around his waist, tugging him a little closer and he feels overwhelmingly, uncontrollably grateful for that press of a hand at the small of his back, the other reaching up to curl around the back of his neck. He feels like he’s being pulled into Magnus’ orbit, and he has no interest in trying to escape. What a brighter sun he is than anyone Alec has known in years. Maybe that’s a ridiculous thing to think about someone he’s known for all of two hours, with whom he’s interacted for a mere fraction of that. All the same, you can tell right away when you meet someone who gives off light. Magnus moves away, just a fraction of an inch, and Alec can feel his exhale against his own mouth. Then he steps back and reaches up to brush a hand through Alec’s hair.

“I’m sorry if that was -- I mean I don’t want to rush you into anything,” Alec starts, but Magnus taps a finger against his lips.

“You’re not rushing me.”

“I just --” Alec can see little droplets of water gathering in Magnus’ hair, which is distracting but he really does want to say this because he just kissed someone he barely knows and it’s important to him that Magnus not think this is a regular occurrence. “I just wanted to kiss you and I think I’d been wanting to kiss you all night and I mean, the fact that I’m not even sure when I started -- you were right, earlier, I haven’t been open, I’ve been locked down, always, and now I’m spilling my guts to you on top of -- it was just enough, I’d had enough. I just wanted to kiss you.”

Magnus is looking at him with an expression Alec can only describe as fond. “I wanted you to kiss me, so that worked out rather well, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Alec says. “Yeah, it did.”

Magnus reaches out and smooths down Alec’s jacket. “I’m afraid I’m rather tired, this job has a way of wearing me out. I’ll just say I’ll be rather disappointed if you don’t call me, after that. Not heartbroken, don’t worry, but disappointed.”

“I’ll call,” Alec says. The napkin is still in his hand and he presses it to his chest in a gesture he immediately wishes he could take back. But he can’t, so he leaves his hand there, feeling beneath it the beating of his heart.

“Good,” Magnus says, and goes slightly on tiptoe to give Alec one last quick kiss. “Goodnight, Alexander.”

“Goodnight.”

Magnus turns and walks away and Alec watches him for a long moment before tucking the napkin into his pocket and turning again to cross the street. The gently falling mist is making halos around the streetlights and when he’s on the far sidewalk, Alec stops a moment to look up at them. How many pretty things has he told himself not to look at? It seems possible to him tonight that this city which he has never loved and which he has never seriously considered leaving, might be beautiful, and he just hasn’t been paying any attention, or at least not the right kind of attention. He walks home more slowly than usual, in no particular rush to get there, and he keeps dipping his hand into his pocket to touch the napkin, like it’s a lucky talisman. The mist is turning back into a drizzle and then into a proper rain, falling more and more heavily until Alec gives in and runs the last block to his apartment building, but even though he’s soaked to the skin -- the napkin clutched tightly in his fist to keep it from getting wet -- he’s not cross and doesn’t regret the slow walk home. Brushing some of the wetness out of his hair on his way to the elevator, he thinks it would take a full hurricane to keep him from being happy tonight. He can still taste strawberries in his mouth, and he’s starting to think it might be his favorite flavor.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much to angie for proofing! an angel as always


End file.
